Buddhism, as is well known, has practically disappeared from the land of its origin. The older and more authentic form of the doctrine known as the Hīnayāna, or Little Vehicle, is found to-day chiefly in Ceylon, Burma, and Siam; the less authentic form of the doctrine known as the Mahāyāna, or Great Vehicle, which is less a religion than a system of religions, is found chiefly in Tibet, China, and Japan. Dr. Coomaraswamy has undertaken to give an account of both forms of the doctrine as well as to sketch the development of Buddhist art through the ages. His volume may be found useful by those who wish to get a first rapid impression of a vast and difficult subject. But from this point of view it is only a compilation, and the author does not claim anything more for it. His book, he says, “is designed not as an addition to our already overburdened libraries of information, but as a definite contribution to the philosophy of life.” It is as such that I propose to consider it.
Most learned treatments of Buddhist philosophy in the Occident have a bad twist of some kind, and most popular allusions to the subject may be dismissed as absurd. Dr. Coomaraswamy had a chance to clear up a great deal of misunderstanding. One is disquieted, however, at the very start by his choice of epigraphs from Jacob Boehme, William Blake, Walt Whitman, etc. Perhaps the best way of setting forth what Buddha is would be to show in what respects he is not like the persons whose names appear in this list of epigraphs. The last epigraph from Buddha himself is indeed appropriate, if only as an explanation of the inappropriateness of the list as a whole: “Profound, O Vaccha, is this doctrine, recondite and difficult of comprehension, good, excellent and not to be reached by mere reasoning, subtile and intelligible only to the wise; and it is a hard doctrine for you to learn who belong to another sect … and sit at the feet of another teacher.”
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